What happened when TechSoup gathered a room full of nonprofit and library professionals, social entrepreneurs, and programmers together on a recent Thursday?

A range of highly innovative ideas emerged for potential new apps that would benefit from ultra high-speed Internet speeds.

The ideas addressed major areas of concern for the U.S.: education, manufacturing, health care, and green energy. They were developed for a local Mozilla Ignite Idea Jam hosted by TechSoup.

The idea jam is the first phase of the Mozilla Ignite Apps Challenge, a public/private partnership between the White House Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the Mozilla Foundation.

The goal of the challenge is to develop applications that harness one-gigabit networks to address real-world problems. If you’re not sure how how powerful one gigabit is, it equals a little more than 1,000 megabits; current broadband speeds average two to three megabits.

At last Thursday's idea jam, despite only having about an hour to brainstorm, eight ideas were proposed.

Challenge participants proposed ideas to create community for distance learners, improve health outcomes for patients in need of physical therapy, harness the power of dance, and more!

The ideas were evaluated and fine-tuned before the larger group so that they were ready for submission before the brainstorming round deadline. A full run-down of the ideas can be found here.

The first phase of the competition, the brainstorming round, ends on August 23. Even if you haven’t participated in a local idea jam, you’re welcome to submit your idea to the challenge.

Up to $15,000 in awards is available for the brainstorming round. Proposals can also be submitted in the next phase, the development round.

In total, $500,000 will be awarded for funding to make submitted ideas into real-world applications. Complete rules and submission instructions are available on the Mozilla Ignite Apps Challenge website.

Think you have an idea worthy of this challenge? Submit your idea today!